We are at the mercy of water. After what happened in Valencia in Spain, the fear of rain has increased considerably. And there is a lot of it. The Aemet has activated for tomorrow, Tuesday, the orange alert in Ibiza and Formentera, with a forecast that may fall to 40 liters per square meter in one hour which will probably flood some areas of the islands.
The amount of material damage and the number of fatalities in the event of a catastrophic flood such as the one that occurred in Valencia depends to a large extent on whether the building has been built in flood-prone areas or not. Unfortunately, there are many Spanish cities that have entire neighborhoods, with thousands of people living in such risk areas. In many cases, the affected residents did not even know it when they moved into their homes, but city councils, county councils and autonomous governments have been granting building permits in places that pose an obvious danger.
how do we know if we live in a flood zone or at risk for the population? The easiest way is consult the map of Areas of Potential Significant Flood Risk (ARPSIs) which is available to all citizens at this web page of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Just click on the “service tree” icon in the top toolbar to display a drop-down list of options, including flood zones with different timeframes (10, 100 and 500 years) and, in general, risk areas, divided into risk to the population, infrastructure, the economy, the environment and other subsections.
In each affected area, polygons and delimitations of various colors are usually superimposed on the satellite image of the terrain. All these delimited areas are susceptible to flooding and, the darker their shade, the greater the number of population affected in the event of one of these climatic events. The level of detail is such that it is possible to distinguish, street by street, how far the flood zone reaches.
Cities such as Murcia, Lleida, Badajoz, Gijón, Avilés, Bilbao, Palma or Ibiza are some of the most affected, according to the Ministry’s cartographic delimitations.
These maps are updated as of February 21, 2020 and in some cases affect only part of the city, in others none at all, and in others a large part of it. Apart from inhabited nuclei, there are also numerous industrial estates and areas of second homes built on this type of land, which usually coincide with flat land, depressions near coasts or rivers or riverbanks.
In addition, it is possible to observe both the areas affected by fluvial and marine flood risk.
Nearly 3 million people live in flood zones
Spain has some 25,000 square kilometers of flood zones, in which some 2.7 million people live, and the Ebro, Júcar and Duero basins have the most “floodable” territory, according to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition (Miteco).
These 2.7 million affected Spaniards live in areas likely to be flooded once every 500 years, but of them there are about half a million live in areas that flood on average once every ten years, according to Miteco. However, these data only refer to the intercommunity basins, which are those under the jurisdiction of the ministry. If the rest of the basins are added, it is estimated that the number of inhabitants over the number of people living in high-risk areas could be close to 700,000.
Flood zone viewer website: https://sig.mapama.gob.es/snczi/index.html?herramienta=DPHZI
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Environment section contact: crisisclimatica@prensaiberica.es
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.